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Sunday Opens (4/1)

We've had our fun with April Fool's posts (remember Obama setting prices for real estate?), but this year, it's time for open-house reviews, so it's a no-fun zone. Not that we mean to diminish the listings.

Have you noticed this before? When the schools let out for Spring Break, for some reason RE listings tail off.

Hey, folks, it's Spring! Selling season! Do you really think all the buyers for your property already live in MB and have kids in the schools?!?

We're shouting into the wind here, though. Very few debuts this weekend, and nearly all are east of the highway.

Major remodeling dates back perhaps 10 years, though the current owners have freshened up the place since their 2006 acquisition ($1.480m).

Enter into a big living room that's on the top level with some treetop views to the south. Formal dining and a big, remodeled kitchen are just off there. There are 3br upstairs on the same level also.

Downstairs is a large guest suite and family room opening to the yard – mostly pool.

Most of the wood floors are light-colored bamboo – attractive.

1618 3rd starts this year at $1.459m, and is open Sun. 1-3pm.

1747 Nelson (4br/3ba, 4150 sq. ft.) is really just about as far east – and south – as you can get in MB. Sometimes we say that, but this is really pushing our town's borders. Proximity to the intersection at Artesia/Aviation actually invites some walkability that you would not normally consider in East MB.

The home looks conventional enough outside, but with 4150 sq. ft. surprises a bit by lacking a 5th br. The first-floor office up front really would not work. So you have a series of fairly large living spaces downstairs and a nice, big yard (on a 7500 sq. ft. lot) and the rest of the bedrooms up.

Kitchen is fairly updated and very clean; the great-room feel is a bit interrupted by the fireplace where the TV should go – a high mantle means a smallish TV, and there's no separate media room. You could work on this.

Besides the master, upstairs none of the bedrooms has an attached bath, another peculiarity with so much square footage. The master is entirely too big, with extra sitting/living space of its own, which was the style of the time (late 80s). We were very surprised by the nice treetop views from the master window & balcony.

1747 Nelson was last purchased for $1.675m in 2006 and starts now at $1.539m. It is open Sun. 2-4pm.

1530 Marine (3br/2ba, 2225 sq. ft.) gets the benefit of a mitigation of Marine traffic thanks to a thicket of tall oleander bushes; the street that accesses the house is set in a bit off the "real" Marine, which helps.

The house is a 1969 original, a deep single-level floorplan that has been updated fairly recently, the kitchen sporting a modern look and feel.

Newer flooring, carpet and paint abound; in the baths, it seems that original materials were cleaned and/or painted rather than remodeled or updated. In back is a mostly hardscape yard.

The home seems very much of its period with some updates and polishing. In the big picture, it's a lot of home for $1m in MB.

That's 2br there, but a lot of square footage to go with it. The 1981 original has some echoes of that past era, but plenty of nice wood flooring to keep it real and even current. They call the kitchen, quote, "new" – is it new or "new"? – at least we can tell it's updated with modern appliances.